Dancer Archive

***this is a response to rayill's post***


i don't know. personally i think the community, our community, is responsible for buffbots. i think lack of focus allowed them to proliferate while people bickered about afk macroing. i think that if the entire entertainment community jumped on the /join command, and demanded a retooling of it, we'd see a positive change.

instead i think the focus shifts nebulously between that mechanic and afk macroing as a whole and thus the developers are confused as to how to implement a fix that the community seemed to be against. i think the recursive macro thread, and the inability for the entertainment community to rationally dissect the arguements put forth by the pro-recursive players further muddled matters.

i don't have enough information to make an informed opinion on the positition of the correspondants, but i have a feeling they aren't helping with the issue, taking a stance against afk macroing in general and not the specific mechanism that allows buffbotting. the only reason i say that is because i don't understand why thunderheart brought up the recursive thread, without simply going for the easy buffbot kill.

now that's fine, it's a difference in opinion, but when that difference in opinion results in nothing being done, even though an instant and low impact solution is available, i have to say we are all to blame for obfuscating the issue. that's just my opinion, and like i said, i don't have enough information to really support it well. i don't have access to the correspondant forum. personally i'd encourage everyone to be optimistic about things and push your correspondants (in all entertainment professions) as hard as possible for the devs to focus on obliterating, or at least modifying the typed /join command. once that battle has been won you can devote whatever energy to afk macroing while the profession heals itself.

this is of course, entirely off topic. i'm still going to assert that we need to think about positive changes to the profession without looking at the matters through the buffbot haze.

Message Edited by meeuki on 10-20-2004 12:10 PM

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CloverRidge wrote:

I have found that most people are happy with 75% of a buff. So with my Dancer/Musician I can do 100% mind and 75% Focus/Willpower. I have very few people turn this down but it takes me two unique professions to achieve this ability which is how it should be IMO.

Relying soley on "art form" preference alone to make the classes different is a bit shallow and the different type of buffs adds some depth to the classes.

Now letstake your suggestion of making the main class buff stronger and the secondary weaker if you change it so a Dancer or Musician can buff all three stats. This introduces some problems. You would want to make it so that the "secondary" buff of the main was weak enough to keep the motivation of the playerbase to not just "accept" the weaker buff but want to actively seek out the specializing class to get a much better buff. It would have to be so weak that it would be a "last resort" if the player couldn't find anyone else. What then happens is you'd have to add in some additional mechanics to the game for the entertainer to turn on and off the secondary buffs.

Lets say Joe Fencer comes into the Cantina and finds a Master Dancer that has no Musical skill and can do 100% mind but only 20% Focus and Willpower and also finds a Master Musician that can do 100% Focus Willpower and 20% mind. They would need to do one of two things. Make it so that stronger buffs overwrote weaker ones or give the Dancer/Musician the ability to turn off the secondary buff so that Joe Fencer could get 100% mind and 100% Focus and Willpower if he watched the Dancer and then listened to the Musician. Not saying it's impossible to do but its more complicated than just giving everyone the ability to buff all three stats.

But regardless of the technical issues being able to buff Focus and Willpower is a "badge" of sorts for the hardwork put in by musicians and being able to buff mind is a badge for dancers. Make either of those available to the other and you take away a piece of the gratification of working on the others class skills.

I like that I can buff all 3 stats but it shows I have put hard work into two seperate classes. Handing out abilities to other classes for "conveinence" reasons takes away a piece of "pride" in the others class that they worked so hard to gain.

Buffing is not the be all end all but it is a part of the package that was earned when we worked on either Dancer/Musician or both. Add your classes ability to another class and you take away part of the satisfaction for a job well done. Trying to fix this by lessening the secondary buff still kills the uniquenss of the classes and relying on the "yeah you can do the same thing but I can do it better" as a differentiator still kills off part of the uniqueness of the classes.

Really it comes down to how important you view those unique abilities and the satisfaction that you take in being able to do something another class cannot due to your hard work in your respective classes.

What you are seeing here really is people that take pride in an ability the have due to the hard work they have put into it. Remember giving that ability to someone else but you still being able to do it better still kills of a bit of the "specialness" of it.

Ytoavee Oases

Corbantis

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i think you are misunderstanding my proposal, i think said dancer would be able to do 100% of mind *and* 100% of focus/willpower. the bonuses would come from additional group members, and likely an unspecified third mechanism to encourage ATK play or diversity, or whatever.

my point, against the assertion that this would be bad for competition, was that a single dancer could do it all, whereas now he cannot compete with a dancer/musician combo. like you said, players are generally happy with 75%. thus, players would be even happier with 100% from the lone dancer, BUT players would also be willing to pay a premium for the big buff group, which could theoretically give bonuses above 100%.

personally, as a combatant, if the large group was full, i'd take the solo competitor. or perhaps the solo competitor is cheaper... or perhaps there's something particular about them, who knows.

i have to conceed though, i don't have a solution for people flocking to dancers under this scenario. i'd personally pick the musician, since i don't particularly care about the sultry, scanitily clad, cantina vixens. but i think the solo musican would generally end up poorer than the solo dancer under my proposal.

then again, who goes entertainer for the money?

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meeuki wrote:
***this is a response to rayill's post***


i don't know. personally i think the community, our community, is responsible for buffbots. i think lack of focus allowed them to proliferate while people bickered about afk macroing. i think that if the entire entertainment community jumped on the /join command, and demanded a retooling of it, we'd see a positive change.

instead i think the focus shifts nebulously between that mechanic and afk macroing as a whole and thus the developers are confused as to how to implement a fix that the community seemed to be against. i think the recursive macro thread, and the inability for the entertainment community to rationally dissect the arguements put forth by the pro-recursive players further muddled matters.

i don't have enough information to make an informed opinion on the positition of the correspondants, but i have a feeling they aren't helping with the issue, taking a stance against afk macroing in general and not the specific mechanism that allows buffbotting. the only reason i say that is because i don't understand why thunderheart brought up the recursive thread, without simply going for the easy buffbot kill.

now that's fine, it's a difference in opinion, but when that difference in opinion results in nothing being done, even though an instant and low impact solution is available, i have to say we are all to blame for obfuscating the issue. that's just my opinion, and like i said, i don't have enough information to really support it well. i don't have access to the correspondant forum. personally i'd encourage everyone to be optimistic about things and push your correspondants (in all entertainment professions) as hard as possible for the devs to focus on obliterating, or at least modifying the typed /join command. once that battle has been won you can devote whatever energy to afk macroing while the profession heals itself.

this is of course, entirely off topic. i'm still going to assert that we need to think about positive changes to the profession without looking at the matters through the buffbot haze.

Message Edited by meeuki on 10-20-2004 12:10 PM

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The only way for the profession not to die was if they implemented any kind of policy against AFK play before JTL launches. That's not likely to happen in 6 days. I was one of the most optimistic people on Kettemoor. Ask around to those who play on that server. I actively tried to find ways to promote live buffers while not martyring the buffbots and afkers. I really and ernestly tried, but yesterday, I just called it quits. The state of the profession is not changing, and when the shiny new ships for space combat hit live, we're going to hit a population surge. There are going to be people who finally look into this game because it offers space combat. What are the new potential entertainers going to be met with? AFK Masters who are either buffing or grinding FS xp.

I personally never did one thing to promote the creation of buffbots. I went to the Coronet Cantina almost every day I played when buffing came out and happily buffed those people who asked me. Then suddenly the holo-craze hit, and I couldn't even get into a group there because they all needed it for their precious XP. People started getting rude about requests then since they could never find an actual live entertainer. I stopped frequenting the cantinas because they were overrun because they weren't fun in a sea of zombies. For me the change was almost overnight too. I don't always get a chance to play everyday. I've got health problems and other factors that keep me from playing all the time. I literally logged in one day to find Coronet overwhelmed with AFKers. Next evolutionary step was the buffbots. I didn't foster them. The holocraze and wannabe Jedi's fostered them.

I'm only in this for my fun now. I don't need the stress of fighting this battle any more. My health problems are exactly better, and I just want to log on and have fun. If that means my borken pennyless profession that is dying a slow death (imo), then that's what I'm going to do.

((Sorry for the off topic... but this explains why I think the buffbots evolved and why I just don't care anymore.. I <3 apathy! ))

it would have been nice to see an end to buffbots before JTL, yes. hey, you never know, they could still remove /join in a week. it's a small, small fix.

drygo, all indications seem to point to them *not* removing recursive macros now, because of the backlash from the community. or if it is done, it'll be done in a low impact way that doesn't affect buffbotting, and certainly, i don't expect that fix anytime soon. maybe i'm wrong and it will come after JTL... but i seriously doubt it.

i stand by my assertion that obfuscation from this community resulted in /join not being removed too. and you make my point for me when you say that many solutions were proposed. i don't think this developer team can deal with many solutions. i think one easy solution needs to be harped on over and over and over for them to get it, and one without a huge backlash from the remainder of the community.

if you read back over that recursive macro thread, the majority of it consisted of

entertainer: yes! get rid of macros, yay!
kids: don't get rid of macros! booo!
other professions: wait a second, why not just get rid of /join? i use recursive macros for X.
kids: don't get rid of macros! booo!
entertainer: no! get rid of macros! i can't wait!
kids: don't get rid of macros! booo!

devs read that and come away with nothing. again, i could be wrong. it's possible they have a concrete plan in the works and aims to implement it, and are just keeping things on the DL. i'll gladly eat crow if so.

plus, if i am wrong, and our muddling of the issue didn't result in the fix not being implemented...

then why the wait? why not make a concerted effort to fix the issue before the release of a product that will likely cause an influx of people back into the game, some of them undeniably with aims of being entertainers.